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Echter’s Plant Doctors are available
during store hours seven days a week to answer
your gardening questions. For
accurate diagnosis, it helps to bring in a sample.
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Flowers Gardens
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If your pansies were
too nice to take out in June but are looking sad now, replace them with
some heat-loving annuals like periwinkle, salvia, marigolds, celosia,
gazania, geraniums,
portulaca, and verbena for a
great color show in summer.
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"Dead-head" (pinch off the spent blooms) on perennials, annuals and
roses for longer flowering periods
and more and larger blooms.
Continue fertilizing annuals and perennials as instructed on your
favorite fertilizer. This will give you continued flowering all season long.
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Check
the water needs for hanging baskets and planters daily. The wind
and sun dry them quickly.
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Perennials & Roses
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If your iris did not bloom well this year, they may need to be divided. July
is the time to divide overcrowded
irises. Dig up the whole clump, sort out the
rhizomes which have leaves on them and discard those old rhizomes. Replant the good ones after improving the soil with compost and working
in a
little super phosphate into the soil below the root zone.
Continue to fertilize
roses throughout the summer to produce nice big and beautiful flowers.
Roses are heavy feeders. Follow the instructions on the fertilizer of
your choice and water at the base of the plant. August is the last
time that roses should be fertilized, however. Roses should then start
to “harden off” for winter.
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Plant fall-blooming perennials like asters, mums, agastache and Autumn Joy sedum
for color August through October.
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Prevent rose and perennial diseases like powdery mildew from taking hold by
using a systemic fungicide before the problem appears. Once those diseases
appear it is very difficult to control. Bee balm, phlox, columbines and lilacs
are some of the plants prone to
powdery mildew.
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Remove
old, spent
rose blooms after they fade, cutting the stem just above the uppermost
5-leaflet node on the stem.
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Vegetable Gardens
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Water your garden early
in the morning while it is still cool. There is much less evaporation
at this time
than in the heat of the day. Avoid overhead watering when tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, corn and
some other vegetables are in flower. They need pollination and the
pollen can be washed
away, resulting in fewer fruits.
Fertilize your
vegetable gardens to maximize your harvest. Fertilize strawberry
beds with ammonium sulfate now for more berries next spring.
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Vegetables will stay
fresher if you harvest them from the garden early in the day. Clean them as quickly
as possible
and refrigerate (except tomatoes which should not be refrigerated for
best flavor).
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Lawn Care
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Those
impossible weeds like bindweed, dandelions and thistle in your lawn can
be controlled with
Ferti-lome's Weed Free Zone.
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Don't expect cool
season bluegrass to look as green in summer as it does in spring and
fall. If a lawn
goes somewhat dormant in summer, it will still
green back as soon as the weather cools and more moisture is available.
Do you have dry
spots in your lawn where water won’t penetrate? A lawn irrigator will put
the water right
at the roots and aerate those areas so that water will
percolate down. Revive helps water to soak
into the ground before it runs off of slopes. It also helps water to
penetrate deeper into the soil.
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- It is best to avoid fast release nitrogen fertilizer on your
lawns in the heat of the summer. If your did not make the second
application of fertilizer in June, our recommendation is Green Thumb Lawn Food for summertime feeding of your lawn.
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Trees & Shrubs
- Deep watering of
trees, shrubs, roses, vines and perennials is essential this time of year. Water thoroughly, but only when the plants require water. Check soil
3-4 inches deep to determine when these plants need to be watered.